Overthrown Moonlight
by AshleyKay
Summary: High School Musical X Hairspray X Slaughter House 5 CrossoverTracy Turnblad comes unstuck in time. Like a fly broken free from amber.
1. Chapter 1

Title: Overthrown Moonlight (Crossover with High School Musical/Hairspray/Slaughter House 5)

Rating: PG (will change later on)

Summary: Tracy comes unstuck in time. Like a fly broken free from amber. She must find a way to fix it all.

She had set out to change the world. To make something different, to color it brighter. To make the whole thing spin just that much faster and fairer. She didn't know that the world had set out to changer her. To give and take, to set her spinning and whirling and falling. Like dropping from her second story window, with nothing but air and such big dreams to catch her. The world handed her the future, floppy haired and cool, with so much more boy than man. In the end she was the future and so was he and so was Link, it was them twined together like taunt strings waiting for the fall and the break and the end.

The world changed them and they were never the same.

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The day it begins, is as normal as 1960's Baltimore can give them. All girls in skirts and boys with smirks and swivels and Elvis eyes. Women with buggies and cooing infants, a picturesque world of simpler times. But for Tracy the where underlaid with tension and rebellion, for her she saw, things that faded into the same and nothing different. Stale land and dried up hopes and dreams, not hers, but others, who couldn't drink from the fountain and boys that had to play basketball in fenced in yards far from the nicer cleaner ones in the park. She looks out from windows and saw cages and times of turmoil and she was ready to stand and fight and change the world. Her mother's soap wafts through the air and the peace in her stomach is lurched forward.

"Trace, hun. Come down for breakfast. Link will be here soon."

"Coming Ma."

The kitchen is warmth and hearth and it makes Tracy uncomfortable, like it's a lie. Even as she knows it's not. The world is different and new and 1964 isn't the dream of 1962, it's a darker, more frightful time. And Tracy isn't sure anymore where she fits.

"We are so glad to have you home, sweetie. Your Daddy and I miss you so much. Why you couldn't have lived here and just gone to school closer by."

"Ma."

"Edna, babe. Let's just have breakfast." Wilbur looks over at his daughter and smiles, but in it Tracy can see that though he is oblivious to much, something in him can see that she has changed and grown and fallen away.

"Ma, I think I'm going to take a walk instead."

"Tracy Turnblad, you sit yourself down and finish this meal." Her mother's strong voice makes her sit immediately.

They eat in a uncomfortable silence.

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It's cooler here than what he was use too. But the air smells different and the sweaters he's gotten almost used to wearing no longer choke him, instead it's the strange lonely feeling he isn't use too. He misses the red and white of years past. He misses the thrill and the excitement of things that are now memories in hard bound books. He's content here, but he isn't sure he's happy. Albuquerque is far away and there is so much time and dust between there and here, he might as well be in some foreign land.

"Bolton, you staying in tonight again."

"I have a term paper due, like tomorrow."

"Pussy, you're only in college once, and you waste it." He thinks about saying something about scholarships and money but knows it's a lost cause.

Instead he sits at his computer staring at never ending blank pages and wonders how he is suppose it write on things he has never understood. Segregation and division, of shows with more song and dance than blood and guts and nude live girls. He types slowly " Time is a different thing now, how can one hope to understand how different the world is when this is the only one you've ever known. "

Troy thinks of how the beginning is like the end and tries to ignore how much the world looks like it's all falling apart at the seams.

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

The air is cool in Baltimore, with the playfulness of summer fading somberly into autumn, he glances in the rear view mirror and shudders. His once stunning hair, all bounce and swave is now just a messy mop, the Beatles had changed more than music it seemed. He never told anyone but he missed the weight of Ultra Clutch in his hand and the heaviness of his hair, like a hard hat for life. It was something safe and true and something he spent more time on every school morning than he thought prudent to mention. And now it was as easy as sleeping and showering and walking out the door. There was no finesse in it , no detail, nothing but go go go.

He fidgeted with the seat belt again

He isn't use to the new ways yet. The floppy hair and the new rules about safety and seat belts and changes so big he can't see beyond changenewdifferent.

But as he pulls onto the Turnblad's street he is hit with the sinking feeling that the biggest change is in Tracy. She's gone from starry-eyed dreamer into passionate crusader and he isn't sure if he can keep up.

He can see Tracy from the street staring out the window, her eyes clear and sharp but still the same soft brown. He remembers their first kiss, the first time she had leaned close to him and said I love you with her breath forming clouds on the December day, how her cheeks were red but her eyes were clear. How in moments they had gone from high school romance into something that time and distance had yet to break. But how now, there was something that had formed in them, something that stretched and pulled and was in the air but he knew it wasn't them, but everything else. Something he knew was going to happen. Something was going to change. Only he didn't know what.

Instead he pulls over and stares, he hums a tune from long ago, about love being the answer, but he isn't even sure what the question is anymore.

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

When he sleeps he dreams of back home. Of red and white and simple. But they're also dreams of running, of going away and never going back. Sometimes in them the people aren't there at all. Instead of Gabby he's leaning in to kiss someone else. Someone with bright eyes and a curved smile. Of someone he's never seen at all. And when he wakes, covered in sweat and shaking he can't remember anything except the exact shade of her eyes.

He's leaning over to her. This mystery of a girl, her curvy hips under his hands and her head tilted toward him, when she is broken apart by light and screams. He wakes with his hand on his chest and a scream in his throat.

And in the darkness of his room he can see something there, crouched in the corner.

"What happened? Ginger? Ginger?"

He tries not to roll his eyes. Another drunk girl trying to avoid a walk of shame.

"This is the boy's dorm."

"What! It can't be."

"I am pretty sure it is. Seeing as how I am a boy." He hits the lamp beside his table and sees a short oddly dress girl leaning against the wall.

"No, I mean this is a girl's college. There's no way this could be a boy's dorm." She looks at him then squinting through the brightness. There is something about her that makes him feel odd, like he's known her forever.

"This college has been co-ed since '71." He gets up but stays back She finally meets his eyes. And he is left breathless. "Who are you?'

"It's only 1964, it would be impossible for it have been co-ed in a year that hasn't happened!" His eyes widen. He feels the laugh bubbling before he can stop it.

"It's 2011. Did you drink something," he feels something shift. "Did you take a drink from something Alex gave you? That bastard is always trying shit like that! I should call security." He turns to go to the phone.

"It's 1964, the conflict in Vietnam has just started. I just got dropped off by my boyfriend Link." her voice is rasing with every word. "I just got home from a weekend with my parents. Seaweed just sent me a letter from overseas, he was telling me about the jungle. My Momma packed me a lunch and my Daddy gave me five dollars, Link said he loved me and and and he gave me this braclet." she shoves out her arm and then starts pacing around the room. "Are you on something? I don't want anything to do with that! I'm not like that! DO-" He rushes toward her but stops short. She sort of sways a moment and then slides down the wall. "You aren't telling me the truth."

"I am. It is 2011. In Baltimore. Look." He passes her his laptop. And she looks so lost. He looks around his room and sees under the dirty clothes and the papers, a calander that his Mom sent him months ago. "Look here." She starts shaking her head and tears are falling down her cheeks.

"No. It's 1964. Look." She pulls from her back a soft date book. In red letters it has March 1964.

"It isn't though." But somehow he knows that she isn't lying either. Somehow he believes her, even though everything that is happening is surreal and wrong and he feels like the world is gone awry. He slides down the floor beside her. And brings his arms around her shoulder. She keeps murmur that it can't be. Till she leans on his arm and sobs.

XXXXXXXXX

She wakes up with her head burning and her face wet. She feels strange and broken down.

She's somewhere she was never suppose to be.

"Are you okay?" And she laughs because this isn't okay. She isn't okay. Nothing in the whole world is okay. Even as she laughs, she cries. What about her Mom and Dad and Link? She shudders. Link, Link that she loved and wanted even as they grew distant. Link who had leaned over at that last minute and kissed her like it was the first time. She cried harder and the boy just held her tighter. And even though it was strange and wrong, being so far gone from everything, she leans into his arms.

"What am I going to do?"

"You'll stay here till we figure something out." And she didn't know why that should be a relief, but looking up at him, for what felt like the first time, she saw eyes that were the exact same shade as Link's. She nodded. Somehow, she knew, that staying here was the exact thing she was suppose to do.

"Won't you get in trouble?" He shook his head at her.

"As long as we don't parade it or cause trouble no one will even notice. Are RA isn't exactly the most observant guy." He leans over and thumbs away the streaks of tears on her cheek. She wants to lean in but sees behind him like a ghost Link. Link who is still her boyfriend even if she is as far away as she can get.

"How did this even happen?"

"I don't know. I don't know anything about stuff like this." He stares ahead. "Maybe I should call Ryan, behind the musical geek, there's another layer of Sci-Fi geek." He grins and then looks back at her. "I don't think you should...you know... parade the fact that you're not from 'this' time." He shakes his head again. "This is the weirdest thing in the world."

"You don't believe me?"

He laughs. "No. That's the thing I do. I believe you, even though there's no reason to. But as soon as I saw..." He stops and continues to stare at the blank wall.

"Saw what? My date book?"

"No. Your eyes." He leans his head on his knees. And keeps staring. "I feel like I've seen them somewhere before."

"They're brown, that's not exactly a shade that's uncommon. I mean it wasn't then." She feels her heart race faster and before she can think of it she blurts out. "Is it now, has everything changed. Do people no longer have brown eyes are they all the same color as yours."

He grins at her. "No brown is still the most common color."

She tries not to feel disappointed. She wonders if anything has changed at all. She looks at his room and despite some glowing numbers and a few things she can't place, it looks as ordinary as her own room back home. "Has anything changed at all?"

She watches as he struggles with what to say. "Do you not want to tell me?"

"I don't know, everything's changed I guess. But maybe not enough." And she understands at once. She nods and looks at the wall too. It's white and pale and even though it's the same shade as all walls are, she can see the cracks and the chip and the age. Everything is different now and everything is the same. Just like it always is.

"What's your name?" His hands are playing with the frayed ages of his night pants. She blushes.

"Tracy Turnblad." She leans her head against the wall and tries not to think about what this all means.

"Troy Bolton." He glances back at her. But turns to stares back ahead.

And everything is different now. With his name in her head and the curve of his bare back in her mind. But still she can feel the dangling of Link's bracelet on her wrist and in her mind she can see the letter from Vietnam in her purse. And everything is the same. She shudders and slumps at the wall.

Just like always.


	2. How It's Suppose To Be

**Title:**_Overthrown Moonlight (HSM/HS/SH-5) (2/?)_

**Rating**:_PG_

**Summary-**_Tracy Turnblad has come unstuck in time. Like a fly broken free from Amber. And now she has to find a way to fix it all._

She sleeps on his bed, the soft echoing snores filling the nearly empty place, but he doesn't sleep at all. He tries, with his back on a hard floor staring at the ceiling, but when closes his eyes his back somewhere else, blurring bright lights and hovering faces. His name on lips and his dreams slipping out of reach. He wakes up in seconds and turns till he makes himself dizzy. Being here, he had thought at the time, was as far as he could go. And now he has a time traveler in his bed an nightmares behind his eyes.

He skips class for two days, he sneaks out in the earliest parts of the morning to bring in food and a few clothes. He forgets to eat. The food he bought laying on bedside tables as the sit in silence, poor lost Tracy staring at walls and silly, fearful Troy sitting on a chair reading everything the internet has to offer on time.

"I have to leave sometime." And his breath catches, and an unknown ache forms in his chest.

"I'm trying," he rubs his tired , oh so tired, eyes and tries to focus on the words. Lost in time. "I swear-"

"I know. I meant, I can't stay in this room forev-" he can hear her choke back a sob. " till yo- we figure this out. I have to- I've never- I can't stand being caged like this. I think I may go mad." She laughs and it's salty and bitter. His eyes flutter and something about a song from long ago plays, he doesn't know it, but he hums along. "Troy?"

"Sorry." he looks at those words again. Lost time. "I know, I really- I have to go back to class. I can't keep missing." But the pit in his stomach grows. If he let's her see the world, how will it change? He thinks of a butterfly flapping it's wings and shudders.

"What's it like?" What's changed?"

Nothing he thinks. "Everything, I guess."

"That's what I like to hear. A definite answer." And he can see the reflection of her grin from his computer screen. That mirror her is combing her hands through mused curling hair. He can hear her sigh. "I haven't never gone this long without hairspray." She laughs. "I guess if my math is right it's almost 52 years." The laugh slips into a half masked sob.

He stares at the computer again. The silence makes his stomach turn.

"We'll-"

"I'm not- I mean I'm not upset for the right reasons." He doesn't saying thing just keeps staring at that reflection of her. "I miss my Mom and Dad. I miss Link and I'm worried for Seaweed and Penny and Lil' Inez. But I'm not sad for the right reasons. I'm not sad because I'm here. I think, I think I'm suppose to be." And in that refection he can see clearly the curve of her face and her whitewhite teeth biting at her lip. "Like this is fate." She bites harder and he's afraid she's going to bleed. Instead she shakes her head and that mass of dark curly hair flutters around her like vines in a fairy tale. Like barriers to something precious, but wonders how to reach her when he isn't exactly the prince. "I guess that must sound silly."

He closes his eyes and beyond the brightness and the songs he can't remember, and yet somehow can't forget, he sees her eyes. Her's and no one else's. "I think you're right." He opens them to the bright computer screen and meets her eyes through words of time. "I'll take you to the library with me, tonight." He watch as her brow furrows and she looks mildly disappointed.

"Oh. Okay."

"You don't like libraries."

"I was never really the- " she spins her hands in the air. He grins.

"Scholastic type."

She laughs. "Not like you I guess."

He grins at the screen and looks down. Red and white and sweat on his brow. He feels the same dread. "Only recently. I was suppose to be on a basketball scholarship but" he pauses to lick his lips, "I hurt my knee." And even though his eyes are open he can see the bright lights and hear the screams and the way all of it faded away like foggy windows in sunlight. How it was the faces of Gabby and his mom and dad over him. How it was gasps of horror as star Troy Bolton, falls down and never really gets back up. Red and white and never again. He clears his throat. "Now it's just, you know, a regular scholarship. So I've got to be more...scholastic." She doesn't say anything back, just stares at him there eyes catching through reflections.

And through the brown of her eyes he can make out the words _Billy Pilgrim may be the first and only known man to become unstuck in time._

_ XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX  
_

He worries about her all the time. He had thought about transferring schools at least eight times a day. But on Sundays, when she calls, she always whispered away that niggling sense of fear. That deep down insecurity that without him there, she would open her eyes and see that she was special enough to have anyone. That she didn't need him. The thought kept him awake, tossing and turning and dreaming of her eyes, and of her kissing someone, her face turned toward that other guy, while he stood by and could do nothing but watch. He always woke the same way his legs twisted in covers and a strange wetness in his eyes.

It's on Sunday that he knows something is wrong. That one day, when he is sure she'll smooth out that fear. It comes and it goes and there is no Tracy. He feels the bile rise in his throat long before he calls her Mom. Hours before he's in his car headed towards her school. Years before he sees the swirling lights and Edna's crying eyes and Wilbur's swaying form.

He stands and stares and vomits in the grass, with Lil' Inez's hands on his back, as officers shake their heads and Edna faints and Wilbur sobs. He falls to the grass, and everything goes dark, and all he can hear is _my baby my baby where's my little girl._

_ XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX_

He looks up everything he can on Billy Pilgrim, once famous popular public figure, he believed he had come unstuck in time. Troy sighs, places his hands on Tracy's shoulders and whispers that he'll be right side.

He stares into the clear Baltimore sky and wonders how it came to this.

"Any luck?"

He shakes his head. "I thought maybe but..."

"What?"

"It doesn't work." She stands beside him and stares up too. "It was about this once famous guy who supposedly got unstuck in time."

She glances at him and wishes he didn't want her to stay and he wishes he could send her away. "Only he got unstuck in his lifetime. He kept jumping from one part of his life to the other. All of you jumped."

She nods and stares back at the sky. "But time keeps going." He doesn't say anything but nods. "Even after we die, before we're born. Times still there getting bigger and longer. So couldn't you somehow get unstuck in all that too. Couldn't you fall out of sync and then you'd have to take your body with you. What if all I am is unstuck in time."

_Maybe_, he thinks _she is. _A fly that's broken out of the amber. A girl who somehow is falling into time like a star bright and blazing burning everything in it's path. She is simply a girl caught between time.

He nods. "Maybe you are."

"Maybe I am."

A star burns across the sky and he wishes that somehow it was how it was suppose to be.

_XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX_

She isn't use to this. Isn't use to girls in skirts so short she can see their under things. She giggles when she thinks of what her mother would say.

She tires her best to keep herself from knowing things. She avoids the papers with headlines like "War in Iraq" and "More Dead in Car-Bombing", because she isn't sure she wants to know. And she had listen carefully when Troy, had said low and even about her knowledge changing things when she had gone back. So she was careful about what she reads, about what she watches. Instead she looks at the people around her and noticed how they changed. How black and white mingled on the street and how young faces seem. She makes notes without meaning to, in the back of her head about how things were and how things were different and the same and just like always.

"Bolton. Dude, you have to come to a party tonight. I can't watch you waste another college day, sitting on your ass," she tried not to gasp but her face flushed anyway. " being a pussy." She felt the blush slip away as she tried to figure out what a cat had to do with anything.

The boy stopped short, after seeing her. She tried her best smile.

"Oh, well excuse me." the boy grinned, "It' seems I was wrong about you Bolton."

"Get out Alex. Now. And don't talk like that in front of her." Troy shoved the other boy out of the room.

"I'm sorry, that guy," she shakes her head.

"It's okay, he seems-" Her eyes widen. "Is that the guy that puts stuff in drinks that guy you were talking about earlier."

He nods. "He's not a nice guy, but the RA likes him, probably because he gets him pot." His chuckle isn't of humor.

"I.."

"I'm sorry Tracy. I'm sure your not-"

"I've got to get use to it. I can't stick out like a sore thumb all the time. At some point I have to be able to blend in a little." She shrugs her shoulders and sits on his bed. She feels tired and messed up. She wishes she was home and that this was all just part of some messed up dream. She feels the bed sink as he sits. He pulls her to him and she leans into his chest.

"I'm scared."

"I know." He says, his face pressed into her hair and his hands on her. "I know."

They stay like that for the longest time.

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He wakes up in the Turnblad living room. His feet dangling on their couch and his mouth burning. He can hear the soft sobs from a distance and wishes he could go back to sleep. Wishes that if he slept long enough, everything would right itself by the time he woke up.

"Hey Link."

He sees Penny's eyes through the hazy and the darkness. He nods.

"We've been worried-"

"Have they heard anything yet? About Tracy."

Her head is shaking.

"It's like she never made it to her room. One of the girls at her house said they say you kiss her goodnight and watched you leave, then she said she saw Tracy looking up at the sky and then turn to go to the door to the house. She said she went to bed and that the next day nothing. They thought Tracy had left. But then her Mom called yesterday and she said-" Even in the darkness he can see the clear tracks of tears. "She's just gone. They can't find here stuff. They can't-" Suddenly she's sobbing, ugly wailing and her hands on her face. He sits there for a minute watching before he pulls her close. She leans her head on his shoulder and continues to sob. And even as he's holding her he's only thinking about Tracy.

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He calls Ryan on the third day. With his breath in his throat, he waits through his obnoxious ringback. He tries to remember the moment Ryan and he became such good friends, enough that during their manly times of trouble he knew Ryan would be there. He thinks it happend after the injury when Chad couldn't look at him without pity and his Dad looked more lost than he felt. When Gabby had smothered him with cookies and words and such niceness that he couldn't stand to look at her. Somewhere in it all had been Ryan, who had stayed back and talked to him about tv and movies and things like video games. Things that he could still do and things that made him feel like he still had something to contribute to a conversation. Somewhere in all that, he transformed under his gaze from Sharpay's brother into Ryan, his friend. And there had been no turning back.

"Ryan. Pick up. I know you're screening your calls but I need to talk to you man."

It takes him three minutes to get the call back.

"What's so important. Did you finally remove yourself from your eternal mope."

"Not now. I have something important to ask."

"You're still not my type."

"Good. Neither are you."

"I'm hurt."

"I'm sure your weeping into your hundred percent cotton sheets."

"Egyptian cotton."

"So sorry." He looks around the green common area. And hides under a tree. "I know this is going to sound odd, but do you think people can really time travel?"

"Yes I know so, I did just last week." He rolls his eyes.

"Never mind forget I asked."

"Dude are you serious?" He doesn't say anything. "I guess I do. I mean I think anything is possible. Why?"

"I just-" He thinks of Tracy, who's up in his room and her sad eyes. "I am just wondering.."

"I think Troy, that time is all messed up anyway. And that it's possible, like all things, that you could I don't know, get lost in it. So yeah, I guess I do."

"How do you think someone would get back if they're lost."

"I don't know. Find a map."

"Right."

"I mean it had to happen somehow. Maybe they wanted to get lost. Maybe they wanted to fall out of wack with time, so they did. Maybe they should have been lost so it just happened because that's the way it always happened and always is going to happen."

"Like fate."

"Sure. Like fate. Like has to be because it always was and is."

They talk for an hour more, never really touching the subject again. He thinks of how she's always been in his head. How sometimes he sees her as if he's known her all along. Fate.

Her eyes._ Always was_. Her mouth set in a perfect bow._ And._ Ready to kiss him._ Is._

He shudders under the spring sun.

This was how it was suppose to be.


	3. So it goes

**Title:**_Overthrown Moonlight (3/4)_

**Rating:**_PG_

**Summary:**_Tracy Turnblad comes unstuck in time. Like a fly broken free from the amber._

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Spring fades so quickly into summer, he's left nearly breathless. The roses outside Stevens Hall wilt and burn in the sun, and all that's left are grim steams and wasted beauty. He shifts and looks at her face, the soft roundness of it, the hair that curls around and around and lays like the dying vines. The barrier is falling on its own, but it doesn't make him as happy as he thought it would. They share a bed and room and comfort in arms, but there still there as the were before. Strangers and terrible afraid. Everything is different. Everything is the same. Just like always.

She moves toward him, her breath on his face, "Tell me something true." Her eyes are wide open but her arms are wrapped around herself and her face is half buried in pillows.

He thinks of old school colors, of time twisting and turning and coming undone. He thinks of her eyes, earth colored and warm, afraid and alive. He wraps his arms around the pillow. He thinks hard on time, of the past and how she came to him like a dream and how she really doesn't belong here at all.

"I am going to miss you."

She sighs into the pillow. He can see the shining light of off her tears. "Everyday." She leans harder into the pillow and muffles. "I'm going to miss you everyday."

He wants to ask her about Link, about where he fits into all this. That other world, that other time, another boy with blue eyes and another boy that holds her heart. He wants to know all about him, about their first kiss and their first time and all those things because they are apart of her and he wants all of her. He wants to know because it's that other one that holds her still even through time and distance and worlds, it's his bracelet she wears like a treasure and his name she sobs when she dreams.

Instead he lays as close as he can to her, so the heat of their bodies clash and fizzle. He takes from her all the can.

_This_, he thinks, _is fate_. Destiny bold and bright and they have no say, no right, no choice.

He thinks about Billy Pilgrim and those words.

_So it goes_

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He becomes some sort of joke on the second week. Officer Larkin. Nosing around campus look and picking and asking and never not once giving up. He looks at the grass like it's a clue and the sky like it knows the truth, and maybe he thinks, they are the only ones that do.

He behaves like he is half deranged and he thinks that he is. That missing her like mad is the truth, like it's the only thing he knows anymore.

"I told you, like I did the last time you asked. And the time before that. I never saw her after that night." She glares and then her eyes soften. "I'm sorry. I really am. Tracy...she was special and wonderful. But I don't know anything." She lifts her arm to pat him, but he flinches away. She looks down and back at him "She wouldn't want you to waste away like this. She loved you." She walks back toward the house. Loved him. _Loved_, as in doesn't any longer. He shakes in his shoes and fights the urge to vomit.

He doesn't leave till he makes another pass around the campus. Looking and searching, for anything besides that gut feeling that she was there. Surrounding in the trees and her half shadowed form in the windows. It was like falling headlong into madness, delirum at the loss of her.

How the past weeks have gone so slow and long. How he just stops going to class, till one day he wakes up in his car, pulled off to the side, caught somewhere between Tracy's house and her school. And he's never looked back. It was that abyss he thinks, that one that they talk of in school. That one that if you look into long enough it looks back at you. And at night when he's lying in Tracy's old bed or on Maybelle's couch, he can see the eyes looking at him.

He stares and they look unblinking toward him. And for awhile he is alive.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

She hates how she gets use to it all.

The way her Mom and Dad, don't fade, but linger in her mind, and how now it doesn't make her chest ache but only feel sore. How it's easier to remember and hold on. How it's all becoming okay. It's the way the thought of Penny and Seaweed stay but no longer make her cry, it makes her instead giggle at the memory and smile brightly at her mind's eye of them.

It's how only in her dreams, the ones she has with arms around her and his breath on her neck, she falls apart. It's Link's eyes she sees, the warm blue, the way he had stared at her that night, when for a moment she thought the world had changed. She shudders in another boy's arms and sobs into a pillow that smells of another. She hates how of everyone she misses it's Link that haunts her.

How there are times, when she's standing at windows, and she can see him. Just those eyes. Staring at her. How he's faint and already half-gone. And how she dreams of him, fading and wasted and mad, how he's searching for her and she can't tell him. Can't reach him. How it's all caught in her throat and she can't stop shaking.

_"Tracy. Tracy. Baby come home."_

She half screams and half sobs. She wakes up with her face in Troy's chest and his arms around her. His face in her hair and nothing but sounds of his throat soothing out a sound like hush and okay and she's safe.

She stays pressed up against him. Their bodies mashed together, with no real words. Till the sun breaks out into the sky. And when she looks out she isn't surprised by how right it all feels. How she knows, like the color of shadows and the feel of lips on hers. That this is what is suppose to be. _Always was,_ she thinks,_and is._

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

He can feel the world turning. In his dreams he can pinpoint the moment he is upside down and turned around. In the dream Tracy is staring up into the sky with him and they are holding hands and time for a little while means nothing. And when he wakes she is there with him. Her face on his chest and hands curled in his hair.

It's the last day before summer break and he's got nothing to do but pack.

"Where will I go?" And he closes his arms tighter around her.

"With me."

He can feel the heat of her breath and shudders. "What will they say?"

"My parents know your coming and so does Ryan. They're the only ones who matter." Except you.

"What about afterwards? What about when you come back? I can't stay in here forever. I have to..." she trails off her hands still weaving through his hair.

"Forever. You'll stay with me forever." He doesn't think about what will happen when she goes back home. He tries not to think of what it will be like to sleep without her arms and her heat and her.

She doesn't say anything just lays still and twirls his hair. Forever, he guesses is a very short time.

"I want to know what happened to my family." They had talked about this for months. And it was always back and forth. Different times the same words. Just like always.

"Okay." He doesn't move but looks toward he's laptop, that definte answer sits. If she goes home it will tell them, if she stays they'll know. All they have to do is look.

"No. I mean I want to see them. Can we go to my old house? Can we look at all those things?"

"Of course."

They stay still for a moment. Calm and steady and not really moving. He wants to tell her he loves her, will always love her, even if she leaves while he sleeps, even if she slips away in front of him. He doesn't. Instead he holds her close and let's her go.

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

Her house is shambles. A broken down building that has fallen to decay. She leans against the wall of her once childhood home and doesn't cry but vomits.

Troy's hands on her back and her breath caught and gone.

"It's all gone."

"I'm so sorry..." She shakes her head. The joke shop, the sign over the door that once proudly proclaimed Edna's Oxidental Laundry, replaced by falling boards and decayed wood.

"Everything gone."

He doesn't hold her and she doesn't want him too.

"I'll wait outside." He let's his hand brush her shoulder. It's a kiss without lips.

She sits on the floor and sobs.

And when she's done she gets up, and leaves under the warped floors the bracelet Link gave her.

She buries herself. And comes undone.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

He's standing in the Turnblad living room, when the officer informs them that the search is done. That after four weeks, they have given up hope. And that's is done.

He snaps, when they say she's dead.

"NO!"

"Look, Son."

"Don't call me son. I'm not your son. She's not dead. SHE'S ALIVE. Now do your damn jobs and find her!" He's storming up when Wilbur pulls him outside.

"She's not dead."

"Of course she's not." Link stares at him. "I'd know if my girl was gone. She's not. I can feel her." His hands are at his heart. And the hope inside Link vanishes.

"I mea-"

"I know what you mean. Tracy is a part of me. She took that from me the day she was born and she holds it still the day she dies. She's not dead. But I don't think she's here either." Link can't think of a thing to say. He thinks instead of how he can feel her, but how it's fading and faint now. Like she's slipping off, like she's, not dying but moving. He nods.

"When I was in the war. I met a man once. We were POW's together." he clears his throat and looks out at the city lights. "He talked about moving in...well he talked about becoming unstuck. In time. And I didn't believe him. It was crazy only... once I saw him fade out and fade in. And I can't tell you how. But I knew it was true."

Link stares at the same lights as Wilbur, and notices how they glow and move and he thinks of how Tracy's gone but still here. How he can feel her in everything. He doesn't know why, but he knows it's true too.

"His name was Billy Pilgrim." He smiles into the sky. "So it goes." He looks back at Link for a moment. "It's something he always said in the war, whether something good happened or something bad."

They both stand their staring into the sky. Wilbur's hand on Link's shoulder. Till even the street lamps fade out.

He sighs into the new day.

_So it goes._

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

He doesn't go home right away. Instead he spends hours looking up Tracy's family and friends. And when she wakes with a groan and sigh, he turns to face her.

"What are you doing?"

"I found out about some of you-"

"No!" She up and at him in a flash. Kneeling on the floor and pressing her face to his knee. "Please I can't take knowing. I don't want to know what-"

"Tracy you don't have to know anything you-" She presses her forehead harder in his knee.

"Tell me." He shakes his head. But she kisses his knee. Her lips feel warm even through his jeans. "If you say it, maybe it won't hurt as much."

He pulls her face up and looks into her eyes. "Seaweed and Penny are married and they have four kids." She sobs into his hands. Kissing his palms and whispering thank you. "Do you want to see them?"

She nods.

The drive is quiet. Her hands folded in her lap and her eyes staring out the window.

The Stubbs' house is small and white with green grass and a walk way in stone.

"I can't go."

"You can do anything." He takes her hand and kisses the knuckles. "Anything."

She breathes deep. And thinks always was and is. This is were she's suppose to be. Good or bad.

Fate.

She doesn't make it to the door before it's open and she is looking at an older greyer Seaweed. He doesn't stop coming toward her but his face drops and then she's in his arms and crushed against his chest.

"Tracy." It's a whisper on his lips and a hug that crushes her.

"How did you-" He shakes his head.

"I can't tell you."

"Tracy." She peers around Seaweed and sees Penny. Her hair pulled back and the grey in her eyes.

"Penny." And then their both sobbing and leaning and she feels the knots roll away.

It's later. After Troy, had been introduced and dinner had been made and they had promised to stay the night. It's when she's sleeping beside him. His face turned toward the ceiling. "You're going to go back."

She lays her face on his chest. "Yes."

"But you didn't ask-"

"I don't want to know when. I don't want to know how. I don't want to know where I am." Instead she brings his face to hers and kisses him, for the first time, his lips are smooth and warm and she wishes she had more to give. More than her used up heart. He kisses her back, his teeth and his tongue at her lower lip. And she can taste the salt of his tears.

And she thinks of Billy Pilgrim, of being lost, of spinning time. It is and it was and just like always. Always. Alwaysalwaysalways. Like a mantra in her head, as his kisses linger and somewhere in the back of her mind Link sits waiting for her. Troy's hands rest at her neck and he kisses her like the world is at an end. And maybe she thinks it is.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

It takes him six hours to make it to Ilium. It takes him another two gather up enough nerve to knock on the door.

"Yes. Can I help you?"

"I'm looking for Billy Pilgrim."

"He's waiting for someone now but-"

"Is that Link?" He stares into the darkened room and sees, not the great man he had envisioned, but a lanky thing with wide eyes and something that looked like calmness and peace. He nods.

"Good I've been expecting you. And Wilbur didn't tell me. It's always been like this."

Inside they sit across from each other, his hands on his knees and Billy staring at him, half amused and calm.

"You want to know about coming unstuck."

"Yes sir, I have to find her."

"She's not lost. She's exactly where she's suppose to be."

"But..."

"Time is a funny thing. It's not like a line at all. It's all over and around. It's everywhere. She isn't here but she is."

He swallows. "Does that mean that she'll come back?"

"It means that when she's suppose to she'll go to where she has to go."

"Like fate."

"Yes. What always was and is. It never changes. Never differs. It is as is should be. Always." Link wants to shake his head, he wants to believe that fate, destiny is them. Tracy and Link. But he thinks of that kiss. The one he had given her after the shows lights had gone dim. The one that she had sighed into and how he had held her tight because he was so sure she would leave. Because it was so. Because he knew without knowing. It is as is should be. Always.

He drinks his tea. And stares at the man, behind his eyes he sees a war and stars and echoing time.

It is different now. With a peace in his chest. And the same. With her memory still haunting. Just like always.


End file.
